Last week I stumbled upon an article regarding the importance of intersectionality and subaltern voices in the discourse on privilege. It is written in response to British leftist writer Mark Fisher, who had recently published a piece for The North Star likening the subaltern and "neo-anarchist" communities to blood-sucking vampires.

He's apparently exiting Dracula's castle.

By "neo-anarchist," Fisher refers to the likes of Occupy protesters. Which means he's talking about me. This is personal. But truth be told, I'm totally oblivious to the socio-political conditions in the UK that he is speaking to. So I will refrain from comment on his piece (nay, I've not even bothered to waste time reading it). Instead, I'd like to share excerpts from the article that I found in response.

I've selected and edited the excerpts below (careful not to distort their meaning or message) to reflect a universality for the privilege discussion. The author, whose name I've not been able to find yet, could just as easily be speaking of the US, on behalf of subaltern voices here, or really anywhere. It's crucial that we who have privilege and power are able to incline our ears to such voices.

It’s pretty depressing that black women are still fighting to get white men [and women] to recognise how racism structures our lives. A battle for dominance is being played out on the terrain of identity by white male leftists stung by the explosion of new, subaltern perspectives emerging on social media platforms like twitter. What is being reconfigured here is the notion of democracy.

Today in this climate of mass-unemployment and social, political and economic upheaval, I can see that most of the ire directed at black feminist scholarship and theory in the UK is coming from white males on the left who fear losing their privilege. Perhaps that debate on intersectionality/privilege is too academic or alienating... but it is nevertheless an important one. Intersectionality is coalitional-building. It is a critical thinking tool that enables us all to analyse how race, gender, sexuality, disability, income, language, nationality and so on work together to shape our experiences. In short it helps to deconstruct difference and the Other.

[Some argue that] there are “petit-bourgeois” opinion-shapers who adopt the voice and language of the subaltern but whose privilege remains unexamined or unacknowledged. So full disclosure, I am - by Marx’s definition - working class. I identify as Black working class woman and yet I can’t accept that [white heterosexual male] media pundits speak for people like me who are “the working class”. I see only gate-keepers setting the parameters of what is acceptable speech and primarily seeking dominance. I have less invested in maintaining the status quo and less to lose by speaking out when I do.

We are always striving towards the truth of our situation. To get there involves discussion. Some of it uncomfortable because it shows up those nether regions we’d rather ignore. And it takes an act of courage, not malice, to point it out.